


bury all the strife of the heart that you have hollowed through

by procrastinatingbookworm



Series: Hello, I'm good for nothing - will you love me just the same? [9]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: (again as usual), (as usual), (the hk fight), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death (mentioned), Chronic Pain, Developing Friendships, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Worldbuilding, climactic boss battle but make it pacifist, guest title source: zach callison, i have no idea how to tag this, thinly-veiled fantasy judaism, this makes approximately no sense without the rest of the series as context
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27071413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Tiso meddles. Quirrel acts impulsively.The Lord of Shades will not be like their father.
Relationships: Hornet & Quirrel (Hollow Knight), Hornet & Tiso (Hollow Knight), Lord of Shades & The Radiance (Hollow Knight), Quirrel/Tiso (Hollow Knight), The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Hornet & The Knight, The Knight & Quirrel (Hollow Knight), The Knight & Tiso (Hollow Knight)
Series: Hello, I'm good for nothing - will you love me just the same? [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957039
Comments: 18
Kudos: 93





	1. go a little farther, cut a little harder

Quirrel’s head is clear by the time they reach the Temple of the Black Egg. 

The grief is lodged where it’s always been, deep in his throat, past where he can swallow it down, but he no longer feels as though he’s drowning.

There’s work to be done. Drowning can wait.

The warrior in red that challenged Quirrel on the borders of Hallownest is outside the Temple’s door, as if standing guard. Her robe twirls faintly, although the air is stagnant, thick enough to cut.

The little knight sits by her feet, resting or meditating, or perhaps just waiting.

The warrior draws her needle when she sees Quirrel, then seems to catch herself, nodding a greeting. “Well-met, simple bug. I don’t believe we’ve made introductions. I am Hornet.”

“Well-met, Hornet. I am Quirrel,” the words fall from Quirrel’s tight throat easily, instinctively, no thought behind them. “Student of the Archive. Er,” he chuckles, self-consciously. “Former student, I suppose.”

Tiso glances at him, but doesn’t say anything.

Hornet tilts her head. “You were Monomon’s pupil. No wonder you wore her mask.”

Quirrel nods. “I don’t remember much, but pieces come through. Enough to bring me here.”

“You come to assist my sibling in putting an end to this, then?” Hornet asks, glancing down at the little knight as she speaks.

Siblings. Something stirs in Quirrel’s memory, and he shoves it aside.

“We’ve come to ensure that no one else has to die,” Tiso says, his voice sharp along the edges, even half-crushed by his accent. “I’m Tiso, and apparently I’m the only one who noticed that there aren’t any moths in this Light-forsaken kingdom.”

Hornet looks at him, inexpressive except for the slight narrowing of her eyes.

“Your king destroyed a tribe to starve a god and was surprised when She retaliated,” Tiso says, his grip tightening near-painfully on Quirrel’s hand. “Outside of Hallownest, the Radiance is the Queen of Dreams, the Light Eternal. Moth tribes shape dreams with Her power, and ant colonies shape the world in Her image.”

Hornet blinks. Her hand tightens on her needle. “I knew that Hallownest had a stained history,” she says, unsteadily. “Tainted by the Wyrm’s desires. I did not know how deep it ran.”

Quirrel smiles, thin and strained. “I’m rather sure that’s the point.”

The little knight looks at the Temple’s open door, seeping orange mist into the air, then at Quirrel and Tiso.

They just stare for a moment, then pull something from under their cloak. It’s the remains of a flower—the few petals that remain are ragged and torn, and the stem is singed.

They reach up, tucking it into Tiso’s sling.

Tiso makes a chittering noise, something like a laugh, but rather more tired. “Thank you, squib.”

Something squeezes tight in Quirrel’s chest. He looks away from the little knight, at Hornet. “Does your sibling have a name?”

Hornet shrugs one shoulder—a surprisingly informal gesture compared to the way she usually carries herself. “They have not indicated one to me. I believe they prefer to wear the names others call them.”

Quirrel laughs. It hurts his throat, slightly. “I call them my friend.”

Tiso’s grip on Quirrel’s hand, already tight, grows almost violent. “‘Squib’ isn’t much of a name.

The knight looks between them, then points at Hornet.

“I call them Ghost,” Hornet says, her flat tone lilted by affection. “Is that the one you prefer?”

The knight—Ghost—nods. Their mask has no expression, but their body straightens, blooming, a physical smile, before their shoulders slump again.

“What are you going to do, dear friend?” Quirrel asks, reaching out to rub at the base of one of Ghost’s horns, the way he knows they like. “Have you any idea?”

Ghost tilts their head for a moment, then draws something from their cloak. It looks like the hilt of a nail, with a delicate spirograph where the blade would be.

Quirrel doesn’t recognize it, but Tiso takes a sharp breath, letting go of Quirrel’s hand to drop unsteadily to his knees beside them.

“Where are they?” he asks, gripping their cloak with such flat desperation that Quirrel has to fight not to flinch. “The Seer, squib, where are they?”

Ghost just stares.

Quirrel rests his hand on Tiso’s shoulder. “What do you speak of?”

“It’s a Dream Nail,” Tiso says, his accent heavy. “They must have gotten it from a Seer.” the word doesn’t sound right in Wyrmtongue, but it sounds right in Tiso’s voice, thick on the edges and clipped between his mandibles. “Seers are… leaders of moth tribes, religious leaders. They’re the only ones permitted to appoint a Wielder. For the squib to have a Dream Nail, there must be a Seer in Hallownest.”

Quirrel knows, as soon as Ghost lays their claws over Tiso’s hand in their cloak. He knows even before they shake their head, solemnly.

Tiso’s mouth curls, his antennae twitching in distress. He clings to Ghost’s claws for a moment longer, then stands in a series of lurching motions, latching on to Quirrel’s arm once he’s upright, sagging against him.

“She works in dreams,” Tiso says. His voice would be flat, toneless, except for the fact that it twists and breaks at the end of his words. “Strike the vessel with the Dream Nail, and you ought to be able to find Her.”

Ghost nods, starting to turn towards the Temple, but Tiso hisses to get their attention.

“Don’t fight Her. Even if She fights you. Make peace with Her.”

Ghost nods more firmly, and turns to go.

“Wait,” Hornet says. 

Ghost turns around, something like exasperation in the whirl of their cloak.

“We are not of void,” Hornet says, gesturing between the three of them. “The Temple was not made to sustain lives like ours. Once you enter, we will not be able to follow. To assist you would mean our injury, if not our deaths.”

Ghost’s head tilts, and they cross their arms. Quirrel, with a stab of amusement nearly as painful as grief, is certain that they’re saying  _ well, then don’t follow me! _

Quirrel opens his mouth to say something—goodbye, maybe—but the words stick in his throat, and Ghost disappears in a haze of orange before he can manage to speak.

Hornet breathes out, sharply.

Quirrel wants to shut his eyes, but he sets his jaw and keeps them open, bearing witness. 

Tiso is pressed against his side, his whole body shaking with exhaustion and yet more grief. Hornet stands like a sentinel, needle in hand, staring straight ahead, out across the ravaged Crossroads.

All they can do is wait.

Metal strikes against metal, somewhere within the Temple. Strikes and strikes, like a nailsmith shaping a blade, until Quirrel’s head rings with it.

Somewhere in the Temple, someone  _ screams _ .

Not someone.  _ She _ screams, with the Vessel’s body, in terror anguish, and Quirrel doesn’t know why he knows that, but he does. The knowledge cuts into him, sharp as any blade.

Nail strikes carapace, infection spatters, and for a moment Quirrel is beneath the Colosseum again, overheated and shaking with exhaustion, Tiso wounded in his arms, braced for it all to fall down.

Another scream, and the awful sound of a nail going through a body, once and then again, and  _ again _ , the sick sound of blade piercing flesh echoing through the Temple’s halls.

Quirrel knows that Ghost would never,  _ could _ never enact violence like that.

Quirrel doesn’t think. He pulls free from Tiso’s grip and enters the Temple at a run.

At the edge of his awareness, he hears footsteps behind him, too light and sure to be Tiso’s—Hornet, then.

She’s right on his heels when he bursts into the Temple’s center chamber, expecting to see Ghost speared on the floor of it.

Instead, they stand—barely; they’re shaking with the effort of it, body seeping black smoke—their nail in one hand and the Dream Nail in the other, braced as if to strike the figure crouched before them.

The Vessel.

Mind racing, still breathless from the momentary terror, Quirrel’s first thought is that they look nothing like their statue.

They strike a pathetic figure, huddled on the ground in front of Ghost. Their nail is—oh gods—their nail is buried in their own chest—oh  _ gods _ , that’s what the sound had been—dripping infection and something the consistency of ink but an even darker black onto the floor.

They only seem to have one arm, the rest eaten away by pustules of infection, and their mask is cracked across one eye, dripping orange pus like tears down their face.

“My friend,” Quirrel says, surprised that his voice is so steady. Already, some terrifying ache is building at the center of his chest. Hornet was right. He isn’t meant to be here. “What stays your hand?”

Ghost barely looks at him. They’re shaking so badly that they drop their nail, and nearly the Dream Nail as well.

Footsteps draw closer—two pairs, this time.

Hornet stands beside the Vessel, her hands hovering over their cracked mask, crooning in the back of her throat. They don’t quite lean into her, but their face turns slightly, tilting as if in consideration.

Tiso walks to Ghost’s side. He kneels beside them, his good hand resting over theirs, on the hilt of the Dream Nail.

“Wait—!” Quirrel cries out, on instinct, but Tiso and Ghost swing as one, and their bodies slump to the ground.


	2. but our fates are inked in pen

The first thing Tiso notices, when his awareness returns, is the absence of pain.

He’s been in pain a long time—before entering the Temple, before his near-death at the edge of Hallownest. Pain’s lived with him like a colony-member for as long as he can remember. It’s a fact of his life—the aching, the exhaustion. Any bug that spends their life on their feet will learn the pain of overexertion.

It’s been worse, since his failure at the Colosseum. The dull discomfort at the back of his awareness had grown teeth and claws, digging into his side and his arm, his leg-joints and the acid-bubbled scarring on his face.

Tiso isn’t in pain, anymore. Not even an ache.

He gets to his knees, and then to his feet. He has two working arms, and his shield, though he’d entered the Temple with neither.

Ghost stands beside him, one hand reaching back to rest on the hilt of their nail, staring into the distance.

The two of them stand on a platform of smooth grey stone, seemingly floating unsupported in a burnt-umber sky that stretches in all directions, no horizon in sight, just great curls of stone, like ribs or horns, rising from pale orange clouds, shining with light from the distant sun.

“Don’t hurt Her,” Tiso says. His voice comes out too loud, untempered by exhaustion, but Ghost barely acknowledges him. They just stare into the light.

Into the  _ Light _ .

Tiso hefts his shield, and Ghost draws their nail.

They drop it to the platform with a clatter that rings loud in the open space.

The sun spreads Her wings, and bears down on them.

Ghost glances at their nail on the platform, hands curling into fists at their sides. In a moment of panic, Tiso kicks the nail, and it skids off the edge, disappearing into the clouds below.

If Ghost wants to be angry at him for that, they’ll have to wait.

The Radiance hovers before them, wings spread, eyes aflame. The space in front of her warps like the air above a fire, then slices itself open, shards of white metal bearing down on Tiso and Ghost, shaping themselves into nails as they fall.

On sheer instinct, Tiso throws himself sideways, out of the way of the nails. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ghost doing the same.

Tiso is just barely steady on his feet when the platform turns molten beneath his feet, and he has to leap for safety again, or risk being skewered—

—and dives headfirst into a beam of concentrated Light.

This is going to be harder than he thought. 

Winded, carapace sizzling, Tiso stumbles to his feet, staring up at the Radiance. She doesn’t seem to see him, Her bright stare focused on Ghost, tracking them across the platform with Her Light.

Tiso starts to get nervous as Ghost flees the Light, bracing himself to leap to their defense, when they suddenly turn on their heels and dash, their body turning to a blur of shadow as they leap straight through the Light, landing in a crouch on the other side.

The Light sears across Tiso’s side, driving him to his knees. The air splits with blades again, and Tiso raises his shield.

Ghost scampers across the platform to Tiso’s side, their hands fisted in the front of their cloak. They press up to Tiso’s side, knocking their head against his.

“I’m fine, squib,” Tiso manages. Something strikes his shield hard enough to send shocks of pain down his arm. “Don’t worry about me. Just stay alive.”

Ghost shakes their head, but the platform melts beneath their feet again, and they have to let go of him to get out of the way.

Tiso barely makes it clear himself, a fact he only notices when he staggers to his knees, breath coming in choked-off gasps.

He can’t do this.

Even with the usual pains of his existence gone, Tiso’s not built for this kind of fight. This outlasting, this quick-stepping self-defense. Ghost might be able to manage it, light on their feet as they are, but Tiso’s only ever learned to stand his ground. If he stands his ground, he’ll live.

Tiso stays on his knees.

It’s a near-peaceful realization, tempered only by the warrior instincts of self-preservation. He can’t do this, he’s going to die here. He’s probably already dead, the Temple sapping away his soul.

Ghost is somewhere above him, clambering onto a platform that Tiso isn’t sure was there before, still weaponless, still clutching at their own cloak like they need something to do with their hands.

Darkness is rising around Tiso, and for a moment he thinks it’s just his vision, but no—tendrils of black, like ink into water, cut through the clouds, reaching for the Radiance… 

Tiso feels the ground shake beneath him, and then, with no fanfare, he’s falling.

It doesn’t even frighten him. He thinks of Quirrel staring over Blue Lake, nail in hand, he thinks of the Colosseum’s mouth yawning open before him.

Something jerks him to a stop, dangling him by one arm.

Tiso opens his eyes, to find himself being held up by darkness itself. A tendril of something black—something that looks like how Ghost looks under their mask and robe, with bright white eyes arrayed like a spider’s across its face—shakes Tiso slightly, like it’s scolding him, and sets him on a platform.

Tiso looks up, toward the flickering Light, and… Ghost isn’t there.

Instead, the dark thing that saved Tiso is half-wrapped around the Radiance, like it’s shielding Her, threads of it extending to bat away thready little creatures with bright white eyes that claw at Her. Every time one is knocked aside, another one or two rise up, intent on reaching the light.

“Ghost!” Tiso cries out, on a hunch. His chest is starting to hurt, pain blooming outward as though he’s been stabbed.

The great dark thing with the spider-eyes turns toward him, lifts a tendril, and… waves.

Tiso laughs, high and sharp and breaking apart in his throat, and waves back.

One of the dark things, what looks like its head covered in protrusions shaped like tree roots, dives past Ghost’s defenses, straight for the Radiance’s face, and She—

She  _ screams _ , in terror and agony, and the dream rips down the middle. 

The last thing Tiso hears, before the void below swallows him whole, is Quirrel shouting his name.


End file.
